Buttons on pants (especially jeans), shorts, and the like have long presented a significant problem for adjacent clothing, particularly tight adjacent clothing such as a tight tee shirt for example. The outwardly extending button often rubs against the tight adjacent clothing as the person wearing the clothing (especially jeans) moves, and resulting rubbing and friction between the button and the adjacent clothing moving with respect to the button can cause the adjacent clothing to become worn and even rip open at the clothing location adjacent the button.
Prior art devices have been developed to try to solve some of these types of problems. One approach consists of a relatively wide, generally rectangular clip with one clip arm section mountable to abut the inside upper edge of the pants (e.g., jeans) and the other, rectangular clip arm covering the button extending from the top of the pants. This rectangular design is bulky, causes a significant unsightly bulge in the adjacent clothing abutting and surrounding the clip, can cause a good amount of friction and wear between the bulky clip and adjacent clothing, and makes irritating or uncomfortable contact with the users skin via the rigid clip arm section abutting the upper inside edge of the pants.
Another prior art design provides a rounded metal cap with a slotted metal button mounting bracket that has curled upper lip rotatably mounted within a mounting slot cut in the rear edge of the metal cap. The button mounting bracket is a relatively rigid and non-resilient plate that is designed to fit one size of button (e.g., a ⅝ inch wide button in one embodiment) and not only cannot sufficiently flex to accommodate wider button structure but also does not firmly clasp to button structures that are narrower than the relatively wide and fixed slot in the bracket. In addition, the metal cap is also relatively bulky and thick throughout the width of the cap and causes an unsightly, edgy bulge in abutting clothing as well. Also, because the cap is rotatable with respect to the mounting bracket, the cap can rotate at unwanted times to expose both the underlying button and mounting bracket, exacerbating the problem of adjacent clothing contact with these structures.
Another prior art button cover is for making the buttons of coats more decorative, not for covering buttons under adjacent clothing. It too provides a relatively bulky and thick metal cover with thick outer edges, raised indicia extending from the upper side of the cover, and a relatively large metal mounting clip rotatably mounted to a curled lip extending from the interior edge of the cover. The mounting clip consists of a bent wire having two arms extending somewhat transversely from a coplanar central section mounted in the curled lip. The clip arms are relatively widely spaced apart to embrace a particularly wide type of coat button, and they each have pointed ends that terminate adjacent to the outer edge of the cap. This button cover would not be suitable for purposed of reducing the visibility of the cap under abutting clothing or for sufficiently reducing the likelihood of damage to abutting clothing. The prominent, outwardly extending indicia, and the exposed point mounting clip arms, would both cause undue friction and damage to abutting clothing such as a tight tee shirt for example.